I believe that some people personally involved believe this story. However, without some kind of evidence, it's just a story.
It happened in 1982 at the peak before the downfall of the Soviet/American Cold War. There could have been military "humanoids" in silver suits spying. It could have been propaganda to distract from some other operation that caused deaths and spent money and moved fleets. Who really knows?
I find it incredible what people are investigating. Do you know that governmental and commercial satellite photos have been taken of Mt. Ararat in Turkey to search for Noah's ark? Seriously. They still want to do ground-penetrating radar searches. The only thing stopping them is the government of Turkey's need for security- claims are that rebels hide in the mountain, so Ararat is often closed. It would be the biggest find in archaeology but somehow, it cannot be found.
Do you know that the the 1933 photo of the Loch Ness monster that put Nessie on the track of fame, taken less than 1 year after the initial report of a creature there, was a fake? A deathbed confession in 1994 about the photo came way after too much fame existed, and amazingly enough, most photos since then show the same kind of "monster" as the fake photo. The legend is too big to die.
How about Roswell, NM? The 1947 incident was virtually forgotten until 1978 when interviews were taken and the whole thing got bigger than life. Personally, I believe something may actually have happened there, but I don't believe all the post-1978 accounts from the "more than 90 witnesses" in a 1980 book about it, who kept quiet more than 30 years until a new fascination with the incident was born.
Big Foot- I believe there are creatures out there we don't know about. Some may have big feet and hide from all men. There actually is evidence that little people (well, bipeds somewhere between man and ape) existed in some Asian islands and died out perhaps after Christianity was born, or maybe still exist. We don't know everything.
There are strange things out there. Maybe it's like the movie, MEN IN BLACK, where it's easiest to hide in plain sight and discredit the legitimate stories about real happenings. It's such a crazy world. But I will stick with the stuff that has real evidence because that stuff is crazy enough.